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Lexical access in trilinguals: Evidence from a double masked translation priming paradigm
Abstract
An original double-masked translation priming study investigates how trilingual translation trainees process their non-dominant languages (L2 and L3) and how these languages influence one another. We recruited 24 French (L1)- English (L2)- Spanish (L3) unbalanced trilinguals to perform lexical decision tasks in their L2 and L3. Target words were preceded by two primes, which were either the same word (repetition), a translation in one language, translations in two languages or unrelated words (in one or two languages). The results highlighted strong translation priming effects, with a repetition effect in both target languages. In addition, when the translation primes belonged to the other non-dominant language, reaction times (RTs) were slower in comparison to semantically unrelated primes in the same priming language. When two different languages were presented as a prime, L1 primes were more efficient when presented as first prime. These results are in line with previous experiments on masked translation priming studies in trilinguals and suggest that the multilingual lexicon is mediated by the L1.
... This asymmetric switching cost is interpreted in terms of inhibition processes, in this case, the non-selected language needs more inhibition when it is the dominant language of the speaker (Green, 1998). In the context of trilingual (Aparicio & Lavaur, 2018) it seems that a larger switching cost in lexical decision task is observed when the primes are presented in the non-dominant language condition, suggesting that language dominance plays a determinant role during early language recognition. Goral et al. (2015) compared dominant and balanced bilinguals in terms of language use and language proficiency and examined different executive functions: 1) inhibition 2) alternating attention and 3) working memory. ...
The influence of the L1 on the L2 is a widely studied phenomenon in the field of bilingualism, unlike the influence of the L2 on the L1. We propose the study of semantic extensions (SE) as a phenomenon illustrating the latter case in late Spanish-French bilinguals. We compare a group of late bilinguals in immersion in France (average length of immersion = 4.6 years) with a group of Colombian monolinguals (naïve in L2 French). They completed a series of experimental tasks to study SE 1) in production, with a sentence completion task, 2) in word recognition, with a lexical decision task, and 3) in comprehension, with an acceptability judgment task. We hypothesize that, contrary to what is advocated in the literature, SE would be the result of a transfer at the lexeme level (concerning the phonological and orthographic information of words) and not exclusively the result of a transfer at the lemma level (at the level of semantic and syntactic links between two or more lemmas). We therefore postulate that formal competition between languages also plays a role at the time of lexical transfer. Our linguistic material opposes two psycholinguistic factors: the density of the neighborhood and the size of the morphological family of words in L1 and L2. These variables are presented under different experimental conditions by opposing associations at the level of form and semantic links of words. The results in oral production show some SEs and other lemmatic and lexemic transfers. The results in lexical decision support our hypothesis that bilinguals are sensitive to L2 stimuli. A facilitating effect appears here for L2 dominant neighborhood density stimuli, revealing a transfer at the lexeme level. These results suggest a coactivation of languages in bilinguals in word recognition and production. On the other hand, in comprehension, bilinguals adopt a monolingual mode in their SE assessments. We conclude that the SEs allow us to illustrate the influence of the L2 on the L1 in the late Spanish-French bilingual.
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions
This study examined the non-task language effect in production-based language switching tasks by trilinguals using two of their languages. Non-task language refers to one of the languages of the trilinguals that is not used in a two-language switching task.
Design/methodology/approach
Tibetan-Chinese-English participants (11th-grade high school students with a median age of 17) were recruited to perform picture naming tasks in three experiments, each with a different language pair of the trilinguals’ three languages (i.e., L1–L2, L2–L3, L1–L3). For each experiment, there were two groups of participants (30 for each group) with comparable proficiency in the two task languages but with significantly contrasted proficiency levels of the non-task language.
Data and analysis
Each participant performed 216 trials and all together over 10,000 trials were used in the analysis of either the response times or the error rates in each experiment. Data of response times were analysed using linear mixed-effect models and data of error rates were analysed using logistic mixed models.
Findings/conclusions
The response times and the error rates data across the three experiments revealed no main effect of non-task language proficiency, indicating a null effect of the non-task language. We proposed that a proactive language control mechanism might be used to overcome the interference from the non-task language.
Originality
The non-task language effect in trilingual language switching is a rarely discussed topic.
Significance/implications
This study is meaningful in evaluating the degree of generalizability of previous studies and can help gain insight into the underlying mechanisms of trilinguals’ language control.
The present behavioral study aimed to examine the impact of language controlexpertise on two domain-general control processes, i.e. active inhibition of competing rep-resentations and overcoming of inhibition. We compared how Simultaneous Interpreters(SI) and Highly Proficient Bilinguals—two groups assumed to differ in language controlcapacity—performed executive tasks involving specific inhibition processes. In Experiment1 (language decision task), both active and overcoming of inhibition processes are involved,while in Experiment 2 (bilingual Stroop task) only interference suppression is supposed tobe required. The results of Experiment 1 showed a language switching effect only for thehighly proficient bilinguals, potentially because overcoming of inhibition requires more cog-nitive resources than in SI. Nevertheless, both groups performed similarly on the Stroop taskin Experiment 2, which suggests that active inhibition may work similarly in both groups.These contrasting results suggest that overcoming of inhibition may be harder to master thanactive inhibition. Taken together, these data indicate that some executive control processesmay be less sensitive to the degree of expertise in bilingual language control than others. Ourfindings lend support to psycholinguistic models of bilingualism postulating a higher-ordermechanism regulating language activation.
The present study aims to investigate how trilinguals process their two non-dominant languages and how those languages influence one another, as well as the relative importance of the dominant language on their processing. With this in mind, 24 French (L1)- English (L2)- and Spanish (L3)-unbalanced trilinguals, deemed equivalent in their L2 and L3 were recruited. They were asked to perform two series of lexical decisions in the two non-native languages (L2 and L3), with a masked translation priming paradigm. Target words in both languages were primed by either the same word (repetition), a translation (in one of the other languages) or an unrelated word (in L1, L2 or L3). The results highlighted a strong link between prime and target, with an effect of repetition for both target languages. Moreover, a translation priming effect was demonstrated, only when the primes belongs to the dominant L1, i.e. L2 and L3 target words were identified faster when they were primed by the L1 translation. No translation priming effects were found for L2 and L3 primes. These results are in line with a multilingual lexicon organized by the L1, with a lack of cross-language interactions between the two non-dominant languages.
A 50ms prime duration is often adopted in both L1-L2 and L2-L1 directions in the cross-language priming paradigm. It is unknown how aware bilinguals are of the briefly presented primes of different scripts; and whether the degree of awareness of L1 and L2 primes is at a similar level. Kouider and Dupoux's (2004) proposal of partial awareness suggests that 50ms English primes were sufficient to make a semantic interpretation. It is unclear whether this is the case when processing one's L2 or a different script. Experiment 1 was designed to measure the comparable prime durations for semantic interpretation of Chinese primes vs. English primes. Experiment 2 tested whether partial awareness of primes would cause priming asymmetry. Our findings demonstrate that a 50ms prime duration gave rise to different degrees of semantic activation in different scripts and L1/L2. However, increasing prime duration on L2 primes did not produce L2-L1 priming.
U n c o r r e c t e d p r o o f s - J o h n B e n j a m i n s P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y A large body of empirical research, accumulated over the last twenty years, has set the foundations for a generic model of word comprehension in relatively flu-ent bilinguals (the bilingual interactive-activation (BIA) model). This approach combines an initial language non-selective access process with inhibitory con-trol mechanisms in order to limit cross-language interference. However, it is still not clear how such an architecture could emerge during the learning of a second language. The present chapter briefly summarizes the key results in favor of the original BIA-model and describes the research agenda that hopefully will help fill in the "missing link" – that is, a developmental investigation of second language vocabulary acquisition. We present a theoretical framework (the de-velopmental BIA-model, BIA-d) designed to guide future research in this area.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural basis of extreme multilingual language control in a group of 50 multilingual participants. Comparing brain responses arising during simultaneous interpretation (SI) with those arising during simultaneous repetition revealed activation of regions known to be involved in speech perception and production, alongside a network incorporating the caudate nucleus that is known to be implicated in domain-general cognitive control. The similarity between the networks underlying bilingual language control and general executive control supports the notion that the frequently reported bilingual advantage on executive tasks stems from the day-to-day demands of language control in the multilingual brain. We examined neural correlates of the management of simultaneity by correlating brain activity during interpretation with the duration of simultaneous speaking and hearing. This analysis showed significant modulation of the putamen by the duration of simultaneity. Our findings suggest that, during SI, the caudate nucleus is implicated in the overarching selection and control of the lexico-semantic system, while the putamen is implicated in ongoing control of language output. These findings provide the first clear dissociation of specific dorsal striatum structures in polyglot language control, roles that are consistent with previously described involvement of these regions in nonlinguistic executive control.
The creation of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has given rise to interest and debate among policy makers, testers, teachers and researchers alike in the reliability and feasibility of the assessment of second language (L2) proficiency. This volume brings together concrete ideas on identifying and measuring L2 proficiency from different branches of SLA research (psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, corpus-based, applied linguistics) to contribute to a deeper understanding of what it means to be proficient in an L2. The chapters introduce a wide range of tools that are innovative, reliable, and easy-to-use for the evaluation of learners’ language level with respect to both productive and receptive skills and provide a variety of answers to the question of how to assess L2 proficiency in a valid, reliable and practical manner. The collection will therefore inspire language teachers, teacher trainers and language testing specialists and help them adapt their assessment practices when necessary, and will also be a valuable resource for postgraduate students and researchers.
Two experiments are described which compared the effects of mixed- and pure-language lists on lexical decision times with English-French bilinguals. Experiment 1 showed that reaction times are faster in the pure-language presentation than in the mixed-language presentation with words that are orthographically legal letter strings in the other language. The second experiment tested this pure-mixed effect more precisely by comparing different sequences of two successive items and by introducing the language-specific orthography factor. No pure-mixed effect was found for words with language-specific orthographies. The pure-mixed effect was restricted to words containing no language-specific orthographic cues and to the different language sequences, that is, on trials following a language change. These results are not compatible with a selective search process that it strategically modified by pure-language presentation. The role of language-specific orthography in bilingual word recognition is discussed with regard to recent models of word recognition.
The responses of English- French bilinguals performing semantic categorisa- tion and lexical decision tasks were facilitated by prime stimuli that were non-cognate translation equivalents of the targets (e.g. arbre- tree) when compared to unrelated primes (e.g. balle- tree). These translation priming effects were observed with very brief prime exposures (29- 43 msec) and forward and backward masking of the prime. Using the same stimuli, translation priming effects were signié cantly stronger in the semantic categorisation task then in the lexical decision task. This suggests that the translationpriming effectobtainedinsemantic categorisationismediatedby semantic representations in memory and not the result of form-level connectionsbetweentranslationequivalents, atleast forthehighly proé cient bilinguals tested in the present experiment.
Until recently, cognitive science virtually ignored the fact that most people of the world are bilingual. During the past ten years this situation has changed markedly. There is now an appreciation that learning and using more than one language is the more natural circumstance of cognition. As a result, there is a wealth of new research on second-language learning and bilingualism that provides not only crucial evidence for the universality of cognitive principles, but also an important tool for revealing constraints within the cognitive architecture. In this volume, Judith Kroll and Annette de Groot have brought together the scientists at the forefront of research on second-language learning and bilingualism to present chapters that, rather than focusing simply on their own research, provide the first comprehensive overviews of this emerging field. Bilingualism provides a lens through which each of the central questions about language and cognition can be viewed. The five sections of this book focus on different facets of those questions: How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple-language input from birth, and how is it acquired when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science.
This study aims to examine language dominance and language switching
effects in a series of monolingual and multilingual lexical decisions in which
participants have to decide if the presented letter string is a word or not,
regardless of language. Thirty participants (12 French-English bilinguals
and 18 French-English-Spanish trilinguals) were recruited for two different
experiments. In Experiment 1, 12 bilinguals processed two monolingual
lists (L1 and L2) followed by a bilingual list (with L1 and L2 words). The
results indicate faster answers and better accuracy for L1 words compared
to L2 words in both lists, and a general slowdown of processing in the
bilingual list, highlighting language switching effects (switch from L2 to L1
faster than from L1 to L2). In Experiment 2, 18 trilinguals performed
successively monolingual (L1, L2 and L3), bilingual (L1L2, L1L3, L2L3) and
trilingual (L1L2L3) lists. The results show a slowdown of word processing
as a function of number of languages involved, even for the dominant
language (L1). Moreover, a language switching effect was found for all
multilingual lists, in larger proportions when the list involves the two
weakest languages (L2 and L3). Results are discussed in the light of
interactive models of bilingual visual word processing.
Using eight-letter words, masked form-priming is examined with more extreme versions of transposed primes than are normally considered. Strong priming effects are observed when as few as two out of eight letters are correctly positioned within the prime, indicating that the word recognition system is surprisingly flexible with regard to letter position. Three prominent models of letter position coding are considered in light of the observed data. The comparison between models focuses on the assumptions and mechanisms within each. Strengths and weaknesses are identified for all approaches. Some evidence is found in support of differential weighting of letter positions, although the more specific question of whether it is exterior or initial letters that are most crucial to word recognition remains unresolved.
The present chapter examines how the bilingual's knowledge of what language a particular word belongs to is represented in bilingual memory and how that knowledge could be used to facilitate bilingual language comprehension. Two basic hypotheses (the language tag and the language network hypotheses) are presented within the framework of bilingual versions of two different models of visual word recognition (serial search and interactive activation). It appears that the bilingual interactive activation model best accommodates some recent data on bilingual word recognition.
Six experiments investigated repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access with 164 college students. Repetition priming effects in lexical decision tasks are stronger for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words. This frequency attenuation effect creates problems for frequency-ordered search models that assume a relatively stable frequency effect. It was posited that frequency attenuation is a product of the involvement of the episodic memory system in the lexical decision process. This hypothesis was supported by the demonstration of constant repetition effects for high- and low-frequency words when the priming stimulus was masked; the masking was assumed to minimize the influence of any possible episodic trace of the prime. It was further shown that long-term repetition effects were much less reliable when the S was not required to make a lexical decision response to the prime. When a response was required, the expected frequency attenuation effect was restored. It is concluded that normal repetition effects consist of 2 components: a very brief lexical effect that is independent of frequency and a long-term episodic effect that is sensitive to frequency. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Four experiments are reported which were designed to test hypotheses concerning the asymmetry of masked translation priming. Experiment 1 confirmed the presence of L2–L1 priming with a semantic categorization task and demonstrated that this effect was restricted to exemplars. Experiment 2 showed that the translation priming effect was not due to response congruence. Experiment 3 replicated this finding, and demonstrated that the 150 ms backward mask that had been used in earlier translation priming experiments was not essential. Finally, it was demonstrated in Experiment 4 that L2–L1 priming was not obtained for an ad hoc category, indicating that priming was not obtained merely because the task required semantic interpretation. These results provide further support for the Sense Model proposed by Finkbeiner et al. (2004).
It is well established in the masked translation priming literature that the priming effect is sensitive to language direction with noncognates-namely, the priming effect is consistently observed from first language (L1) to second language (L2), but not always from L2 to L1. Several recent reports demonstrated both L1-L2 and L2-L1 priming and attributed the restoration of L2-L1 priming to high proficiency in L2. Here, the current study tested two groups of highly proficient Chinese-English bilinguals, with one group more dominant in English and the other more balanced in both languages. The L2-L1 priming effect was only observed with the balanced bilinguals, but not the English-dominant ones. Based on these results, I argue that the language proficiency account is not sufficient to explain the priming asymmetry and that the relative bilingual balance is a more accurate account. Theoretically, the cross-language balance is determined by the representational difference between L1 and L2 at the semantic level. I discuss the results in relation to various bilingual models, in particular, the sense model and the distributional representational model (DRM), which capture the semantic representations of bilinguals.
Do the lexical representations of the non-response language enter into lexical competition during speech production? This issue has been studied by means of the picture–word interference paradigm in which two paradoxical effects have been observed. The so-called CROSS-LANGUAGE IDENTITY EFFECT (Costa, Miozzo and Caramazza, 1999) has been taken as evidence against cross-linguistic lexical competition. In contrast, the so-called PHONO-TRANSLATION EFFECT (Hermans, Bongaerts, De Bot and Schreuder, 1998) has been interpreted as revealing lexical competition across languages. In this article, we assess the reliability of these two effects by testing Spanish–Catalan highly-proficient bilinguals performing a Stroop task. The results of the experiment are clear: while the cross-language identity facilitation effect is reliably replicated, the phono-translation interference effect is absent from the Stroop task. From these results, we conclude that we should be cautious when drawing strong conclusions about the presence of competition across languages based on the phono-translation effect observed in the picture–word interference paradigm.
Masked translation priming between languages with different scripts exhibits a marked asymmetry in lexical decision, with much stronger priming from L1 to L2 than from L2 to L1. This finding was confirmed in a lexical decision task with Chinese–English bilinguals who were late learners of English. Following a suggestion made by Bradley (1991), the experiment was repeated using a speeded episodic recognition task. Participants studied Chinese words, and then were tested in an old/new classification task in which Chinese target words were primed by masked English translation equivalents. Significant priming was obtained for old items, not for new items. However, no priming was obtained when lexical decision was used. Unexpectedly, the episodic task showed a reverse asymmetry, since L1–L2 priming was not obtained with this task, although strong effects were obtained for lexical decision. A possible explanation for this pattern of results is that knowledge of L2 lexical items is represented episodically for late learners.
Two hypotheses about the association between the equivalent words in a bilingual's two languages are considered. The word association hypothesis proposes that a direct association is established between words in the two languages. During second-language acquisition, that association is used to understand and produce words in the second language by retrieving a word in the first language. The concept mediation hypothesis proposes that the only connection between the two languages is via an underlying, amodal conceptual system, one to which pictured objects also have access. The hypotheses make different predictions about the time to name pictures in the second language relative to the time to translate first-language words into the second language. Two experiments are reported, one with proficient Chinese—English bilinguals and the second with nonfluent English—French bilinguals (American high school students). Subjects read words aloud, named pictures, and translated words; one Chinese—English group categorized pictures and words. The results were consistent with the concept mediation hypothesis and contradicted predictions of the word association hypothesis. There was no evidence for a direct association between words in the two languages in either bilingual group.
Simultaneous interpreting is a complex skill in which language comprehension and production take place at the same time in two languages. In this study, we examined performance on basic language and working memory tasks that have been hypothesized to engage cognitive skills important for simultaneous interpreting. The participants were native Dutch speakers proficient in English as a second language. We compared the performance of trained interpreters to bilingual university students (Experiment 1) and to highly proficient English teachers (Experiment 2). The interpreters outperformed the university students in their speed and accuracy of language performance and on their memory capacity estimated from a set of (working) memory measures. The interpreters also outperformed the English teachers, but only on the memory tasks, suggesting that performance on the language tasks was determined by proficiency more than cognitive resources. Taken together, these data point to (working) memory as a critical subskill for simultaneous interpreting.
This study aimed to explore non-verbal executive processes in simultaneous interpreters. Simultaneous interpreters, bilinguals without any training in simultaneous interpreting, and control monolinguals performed the Wisconsin card sorting task (WCST; Experiment 1) and the Simon task (Experiment 2). Performance on WCST was thought to index cognitive flexibility while Simon task performance was considered an index of inhibitory processes. Simultaneous interpreters outperformed bilinguals and monolinguals on the WCST by showing reduced number of attempts to infer the rule, few errors, and few previous-category perseverations. However, simultaneous interpreters presented Simon effects similar to those found in bilinguals and monolinguals. Together, these results suggest that experience in interpreting is associated with changes in control processes required to perform interpreting tasks.
Research on the processing of translations offers important insights on how bilinguals negotiate the representation of words from two languages in one mind and one brain. Evidence so far has shown that translation equivalents effectively activate each other as well as their shared concept even when translations lack of any formal overlap (i.e., non-cognates) and even when one of them is presented subliminally, namely under masked priming conditions. In the lexical decision studies testing masked translation priming effects with unbalanced bilinguals a remarkably stable pattern emerges: larger effects in the dominant (L1) to the non-dominant (L2) translation direction, than vice versa. Interestingly, this asymmetry vanishes when simultaneous and balanced bilinguals are tested, suggesting that the linguistic profile of the bilinguals could be determining the pattern of cross-language lexico-semantic activation across the L2 learning trajectory. The present study aims to detect whether L2 proficiency is the critical variable rendering the otherwise asymmetric cross-language activation of translations obtained in the lexical decision task into symmetric. Non-cognate masked translation priming effects were examined with three groups of Greek (L1)–English (L2) unbalanced bilinguals, differing exclusively at their level of L2 proficiency. Although increased L2 proficiency led to improved overall L2 performance, masked translation priming effects were virtually identical across the three groups, yielding in all cases significant but asymmetric effects (i.e., larger effects in the L1 → L2 than in the L2 → L1 translation direction). These findings show that proficiency does not modulate masked translation priming effects at intermediate levels, and that a native-like level of L2 proficiency is needed for symmetric effects to emerge. They furthermore, pose important constraints on the operation of the mechanisms underlying the development of cross-language lexico-semantic links.
Non-cognate masked translation priming lexical decision studies with unbalanced bilinguals suggest that masked translation priming effects are asymmetric as a function of the translation direction (significant effects only in the dominant [L1] to nondominant [L2] language translation direction). However, in contrast to the predictions of most current accounts of masked translation priming effects, bidirectional effects have recently been reported with a group of low proficient bilinguals Duyck & Warlop 2009 (Experimental Psychology 56:173-179). In a series of masked translation priming lexical decision experiments we examined whether the same pattern of effects would emerge with late and low proficient Greek (L1)-Spanish (L2) bilinguals. Contrary to the results obtained by Duyck and Warlop, and in line with the results found in most studies in the masked priming literature, significant translation priming effects emerged only when the bilinguals performed the task with L1 primes and L2 targets. The existence of the masked translation priming asymmetry with low proficient bilinguals suggests that cross-linguistic automatic lexico-semantic links may be established very early in the process of L2 acquisition. These findings could help to define models of bilingualism that consider L2 proficiency level to be a determining factor.
Two experiments were conducted measuring self-paced reading to study language access and language selection in professional translators and bilinguals when they understood sentences randomly presented in their first language (L1, Spanish) and second language (L2, English). These sentences contained a critical cognate word or a control matched word. The effect of cognate words was considered an index of between-language activation while the inhibition of the non-target language was examined with the asymmetrical switching cost. In Experiment 1, participants read and repeated sentences while in Experiment 2 participants read sentences without repeating them after reading. The results indicated that lexical processing depended on the experience of participants in professional translation and the demands imposed by the understanding task (reading and repeating or only reading).
Brysbaert and Duyck (2009) suggest that it is time to abandon the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll and Stewart, 1994) in favor of connectionist models such as BIA+ (Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 2002) that more accurately account for the recent evidence on nonselective access in bilingual word recognition. In this brief response, we first review the history of the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM), consider the set of issues that it was proposed to address, and then evaluate the evidence that supports and fails to support the initial claims of the model. Although 15 years of new research findings require a number of revisions to the RHM, we argue that the central issues to which the model was addressed, the way in which new lexical forms are mapped to meaning and the consequence of language learning history for lexical processing, cannot be accounted for solely within models of word recognition.
One essential issue for models of bilingual memory organization is to what degree the representation from one of the languages is shared with the other language. In this study, we examine whether there is a symmetrical translation priming effect with highly proficient, simultaneous bilinguals. We conducted a masked priming lexical decision experiment with cognate and noncognate translation equivalents. Results showed a significant masked translation priming effect for both cognates and noncognates, with a greater priming effect for cognates. Furthermore, the magnitude of the translation priming was similar in the two directions. Thus, highly fluent bilinguals do develop symmetrical between-language links, as predicted by the Revised Hierarchical model and the BIA+ model. We examine the implications of these results for models of bilingual memory.
An orthographically similar masked nonword prime facilitates responding in a lexical decision task (Forster & Davis, 1984). Recently, this masked priming paradigm has been used to evaluate models of orthographic coding--odels that attempt to quantify prime-target similarity. One general finding is that priming effects often do not occur when prime-target similarity is moderate, a result that the authors interpret as being due to uncontrolled effects of lexical inhibition. In the present research, a new version of the masked priming paradigm, sandwich priming, was introduced in an effort to minimize the impact of lexical inhibition. Masked sandwich priming involves briefly presenting the target itself prior to the presentation of each prime. Results indicate that the new paradigm was successful. The predicted priming effects were observed for Guerrera and Forster's (2008) T-All primes (e.g., avacitno-VACATION) and for primes differing from their targets at 3 letter positions (e.g., coshure-CAPTURE)-effects that are not found with the conventional masked priming paradigm. In addition to demonstrating the usefulness of the sandwich priming technique, these results also support the assumption that inhibitory processes play an important role in lexical processing.
Presented 2 strings of letters simultaneously, with 1 string displayed visually above the other, to high school students (n = 24). In exp. I, ss responded "yes" if both strings were words, otherwise responding "no." in exp. Ii, ss responded "same" if the 2 strings were either both words or both nonwords, otherwise responding "different." "yes" responses and "same" responses were faster for pairs of commonly associated words than for pairs of unassociated words. "same" responses were slowest for pairs of nonwords. "no" responses were faster when the top string in the display was a nonword, whereas "different" responses were faster when the top string was a word. Results support a retrieval model involving a dependence between separate successive decisions about whether each of the 2 strings is a word. Possible mechanisms that underlie this dependence are discussed. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Six experiments addressed the combinatorial influence of multiple related primes in naming, lexical decision and relatedness judgment performance. Primes either converged on a single semantic representation (e.g., LION-STRIPES-TIGER) or diverged onto distinct semantic representations (e.g., KIDNEY-PIANO-ORGAN). The facilitatory influence of 2 related primes was well predicted by the sum of the influences from the single-related-prime conditions (a) for both convergent and divergent primes, (b) in lexical-decision and naming, (c) across varying prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies, and (d) under target-degradation conditions that increased the priming effects. The relatedness-judgment task yielded an additive pattern of priming for convergent prime conditions; however, an underadditive pattern of priming was found for divergent prime conditions. Discussion focuses on the role of attentional systems that modulate the type of information used to perform a given task.
Switching languages has often been associated with a processing cost. In this study, the authors used event-related potentials to compare switches between two languages with within-language lexical switches as bilinguals read for comprehension. Stimuli included English sentences and idioms ending either with the expected English words, their Spanish translations (code switches), or English synonyms (lexical switches). As expected, lexical switches specifically enhanced the N400 response in both context types. Code switches, by contrast, elicited an increased negativity over left fronto-central sites in the regular nonidiomatic sentences (250-450 ms) and a large posterior positivity (450-850 ms) in both context types. In addition, both lexical and code switches elicited a late frontal positivity (650-850 ms) relative to expected completions, especially in idioms. Analysis of the individual response patterns showed correlations with vocabulary skills in English and in Spanish. Overall, the electrophysiological data suggest that for some speakers in some contexts, the processing of a code switch may actually be less costly than the processing of an unexpected within-language item.
When a book is translated, the meaning of the original should be preserved in the words of the target language.
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Accounts of bilingual cognitive advantages suggest an associative link between cross-linguistic competition and inhibitory control. We investigate this link by examining English-Spanish bilinguals' parallel language activation during auditory word recognition and nonlinguistic Stroop performance. Thirty-one English-Spanish bilinguals and 30 English monolinguals participated in an eye-tracking study. Participants heard words in English (e.g., comb) and identified corresponding pictures from a display that included pictures of a Spanish competitor (e.g., conejo, English rabbit). Bilinguals with higher Spanish proficiency showed more parallel language activation and smaller Stroop effects than bilinguals with lower Spanish proficiency. Across all bilinguals, stronger parallel language activation between 300-500ms after word onset was associated with smaller Stroop effects; between 633-767ms, reduced parallel language activation was associated with smaller Stroop effects. Results suggest that bilinguals who perform well on the Stroop task show increased cross-linguistic competitor activation during early stages of word recognition and decreased competitor activation during later stages of word recognition. Findings support the hypothesis that cross-linguistic competition impacts domain-general inhibition.
It is commonly assumed that simultaneous interpreting is very demanding with respect to cognitive resources such as working memory (WM). Previous studies measuring WM skills in simultaneous interpreters, however, have yielded contradictory findings. Some studies seem to support the hypothesis of enhanced WM skills in professional interpreters, others do not find differences between interpreters and controls. This article offers an attempt to account for some of these contradictory results with an analysis of methodological aspects and their theoretical implications. Two of the most frequently used experimental paradigms are considered: a free recall task with articulatory suppression (Köpke & Nespoulous, 2006; Padilla, Bajo, & Macizo, 2005; Padilla Benítez, 1995) and reading or listening span (Christoffels, de Groot, & Kroll, 2006; Köpke & Nespoulous, 2006; Liu, Schallert, & Carroll, 2004; Padilla Benítez, 1995). Concerning the free recall task, it is argued that participant selection may account for contradictory findings and that differences in task timing are so pronounced that the different studies may actually assess different memory skills. The discussion of methodological differences in the listening or reading span task leads to the claim that results are consistent with the view of professional interpreters being advantaged in free recall WM tasks but not in serial recall.
A series of progressive demasking and lexical decision experiments investigated how the recognition of target words exclusively belonging to one language is affected by the existence of orthographic neighbors from the same or the other language of bilingual participants. Increasing the number of orthographic neighbors in Dutch systematically slowed response times to English target words in Dutch/English bilinguals, while an increase in target language neighbors consistently produced inhibitory effects for Dutch and facilitatory effects for English target words. Monolingual English speakers also showed facilitation due to English neighbors, but no effect of Dutch neighbors. The experiments provide evidence for parallel activation of words in an integrated Dutch/English lexicon. An implemented version of such a model making these assumptions, the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model, is shown to account for the overall pattern of results.
The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of both word age of acquisition (AoA) and frequency of occurrence on the timing and topographical distribution of ERP components. The processing of early- versus late-acquired words was compared with that of high-frequency versus low-frequency words. Participants were asked to perform an orthographic task while EEG was recorded from 128 sites. RTs showed an effect of both word AoA and lexical frequency. ERPs revealed a neuro-functional dissociation between AoA and frequency effects in early word processing. AoA modulated the amplitude of left occipito-temporal selection-negativity, suggesting an effect of AoA on early orthographic and lexical access and revealing the crucial role of AoA in determining how words are neurally represented in the ventral pathway. Lexical frequency modulated the amplitude of left anterior negativity, providing evidence for the involvement of the left inferior frontal cortex in the processing of low-frequency words.
The paper opens with an evaluation of the BIA model of bilingual word recognition in the light of recent empirical evidence. After pointing out problems and omissions, a new model, called the BIA+, is proposed. Structurally, this new model extends the old one by adding phonological and semantic lexical representations to the available orthographic ones, and assigns a different role to the so-called language nodes. Furthermore, it makes a distinction between the effects of non-linguistic context (such as instruction and stimulus list composition) and linguistic context (such as the semantic and syntactic effects of sentence context), based on a distinction between the word identification system itself and a task/decision system that regulates control. At the end of the paper, the generalizability of the BIA+ model to different tasks and modalities is discussed.
Dutch–English bilinguals performed a generalized lexical decision task on triplets of items, responding with “yes” if all three items were correct Dutch and/or English words, and with “no” if one or more of the items was not a word in either language. Sometimes the second item in a triplet was an interlingual homograph whose English meaning was semantically related to the third item of the triplet (e.g., HOUSE – ANGEL – HEAVEN, where ANGEL means “sting” in Dutch). In such cases, the first item was either an exclusively English (HOUSE) or an exclusively Dutch (ZAAK) word. Semantic priming effects were found in on-line response times. Event-related potentials that were recorded simultaneously showed N400 priming effects thought to reflect semantic integration processes. The response time and N400 priming effects were not affected by the language of the first item in the triplets, providing evidence in support of a strong bottom-up role with respect to bilingual word recognition. The results are interpreted in terms of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model, a language nonselective access model assuming bottom-up priority.
This paper aims to foster discussion of the means by which bilinguals control their two language systems. It proposes an inhibitory control (IC) model that embodies the principle that there are multiple levels of control. In the model a language task schema (modulated by a higher level of control) “reactively” inhibits potential competitors for production at the lemma level by virtue of their language tags. The IC model is used to expand the explanation of the effect of category blocking in translation proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994), and predictions of the model are tested against other data. Its relationship to other proposals and models is considered and future directions proposed.
This study examined cross-language masked priming with Korean–English unbalanced bilinguals. The aim was to determine if the type of prime and target relationship and the type of response task would modulate across-language priming effects. The nature of the relationship between prime (Korean: L1) and target (English: L2) pairs was manipulated so that they shared semantics and phonology (cognate translations), semantics only (noncognate translations), phonology only (homophones), or neither phonology nor semantics (baseline). These prime types were tested in three different response tasks, i.e., lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization. In the lexical decision task (Experiment 1), significant priming from cognate and noncognate translation primes was observed. Homophone primes did not produce a significant priming effect. In the naming task (Experiment 2), both cognate and homophone primes produced significant priming effects but the noncognate translation primes did not. Experiment 3 replicated the homophone priming effect and showed that it was unlikely to be due to the shared initial phonemes of primes and targets. Finally, the semantic categorization task (Experiment 4) showed cognate and noncognate translation priming but not homophone priming. The results indicated that priming was affected both by prime–target relationship and by task type; this outcome was discussed in terms of the regulation of lexical information by a task-decision system.
Despite an impressive psycholinguistic effort to explore the way in which two or more languages are represented and controlled, controversy surrounds both issues. We argue that problems of representation and control are intimately connected and we propose that data from functional neuroimaging may advance a resolution. Neuroimaging data, we argue, support the notion that the neural representation of a second language converges with the representation of that language learned as a first language and that language production in bilinguals is a dynamic process involving cortical and subcortical structures that make use of inhibition to resolve lexical competition and to select the intended language.
One key issue for models of bilingual memory is to what degree the semantic representation from one of the languages is shared with the other language. In the present paper, we examine whether there is an early, automatic semantic priming effect across languages for noncognates with highly proficient (Basque/Spanish) bilinguals. Experiment 1 was a between-language masked semantic priming lexical decision experiment. Results showed a significant between-language semantic priming effect for both Basque–Spanish and Spanish–Basque pairs. Experiment 2 showed that the magnitude of the between-language and within-language masked semantic priming effects was quite similar. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 with highly proficient bilinguals whose mother tongue was Spanish. Thus, highly fluent bilinguals develop early and automatic between-language links with noncognates at the semantic level, as predicted by the hierarchical revised model and the BIA+ model. We examine the implications of these results for models of bilingual memory.
A well-known asymmetry exists in the bilingual masked priming literature in which lexical decision is used: namely, masked primes in the dominant language (L1) facilitate decision times on targets in the less dominant language (L2), but not vice versa. In semantic categorization, on the other hand, priming is symmetrical. In Experiments 1–3 we confirm this task difference, finding robust masked L2–L1 translation priming in semantic categorization but not lexical decision. In formulating an account for these findings, we begin with the assumption of a representational asymmetry between L1 and L2 lexical semantic representations, such that L1 representations are richly populated and L2 representations are not. According to this representational account, L2–L1 priming does not occur in lexical decision because an insufficient proportion of the L1 lexical semantic representation is activated by the L2 prime. In semantic categorization, we argue that the semantic information recruited to generate a decision is restricted by the task category, and that this restriction enhances the effectiveness of the L2 prime. In Experiments 4–6, these assumptions were tested in a within-language setting by pairing many-sense words (e.g., “head”) with few-sense words (e.g., “skull”). In lexical decision, robust priming was obtained in the many-to-few direction (analogous to L1–L2), but, no priming was obtained in the few-to-many direction (analogous to L2–L1) using the same word pairs. Priming in semantic categorization, on the other hand, was obtained in both directions. We propose the Sense Model as a possible account of these findings.
We investigated individual differences in second language (L2) proficiency by looking at the efficiency or automaticity of semantic priming using behavioural and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures. In Experiment 1, 37 first language (L1) English speakers varying in second language (L2, French) proficiency made living/non-living judgments to English and French nouns in lists blocked by language. Sixty critical words were each presented twice, once primed by a semantic associate in the preceding trial (e.g. ADULT, CHILD) and once unprimed (e.g. RABBIT, CHILD). Measures of response time (RT) and intra-individual variability in response time (coefficient of variation, CV) were obtained. The CV provided an index of processing efficiency that has been related to automaticity. Participants performed faster and with lower CVs (i.e. with greater efficiency) in L1 than L2, and the more highly proficient bilinguals had lower CVs than the less proficient bilinguals. Experiment 2 replicated these results with 29 participants and provided an electrical brain activity measure of processing efficiency using the N400 ERP. The similar pattern of results obtained between the behavioural and N400 ERP CV measures supported the idea that the CV measure of electrical brain activity can provide useful information about the automaticity or efficiency of cognitive processing.
Two experiments sought to identify event-related potential (ERP) correlates of masked repetition priming of words in lists and to verify that such effects are not due to brief prime durations. In Experiment 1, prime stimuli were masked and their durations were individually titrated for each participant. Targets that were immediate or delayed repetitions of masked primes resulted in attenuation of the N400, with little or no enhancement of a late positive component (LPC). Delayed, in-the-clear repetitions of unmasked targets led to attenuation of the N400 and enhancement of the LPC. Experiment 2 used similar stimulus timing parameters, but primes were unmasked. More typical unmasked repetition effects were observed for immediate repetitions including a larger attenuation of the N400 and enhancement of the LPC. These findings are discussed within current notions of the functional significance of the N400 and LPC.
Recent event-related potential (ERP) and neuroimaging studies suggest that bilingual individuals are able to inhibit the processing of a non-target language while speaking or reading in another language. The neural mechanisms subserving code switching still remain matter of debate. The aim of the present study was to shed some light on the neurofunctional bases of such mechanisms. ERPs were recorded in native Italian simultaneous interpreters and monolingual controls during a semantic processing task in which the subjects had to evaluate the sensibleness of final words of incomplete sentences. All participants were strictly right-handed. Interpreters knew at least four languages (from four to eight) at a professional level, from among 11 European and Asian languages, and had an excellent command of English (L2). Four hundred short sentences were presented visually; half of them had an unexpected final word, producing a semantic incongruence. Sentences could be entirely in Italian or in English (unmixed); alternatively, the body of the sentence could be in English and the final word in Italian or vice versa (mixed). ERPs were time locked to the onset of the final word.